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Rambling

Happiness. Contentment. Peace. Those are the things I want in life, both personally and professionally. And yet, I realized this morning that while I say I want those things, my actions keep them just out of my reach. I don’t allow myself to be happy with where I’m at, I have to push myself to do more. But then, I’m unhappy because I’m not where I need to be.

This realization hit me as I looked at the deadline I’ve set for myself for my current work in progress. I’d set a self-imposed deadline of June 15th because I knew how much I had going on between now and then. But then I had a few amazing days of inspired writing. Rather than fist pump because I’m ahead of schedule, I altered my deadline by two weeks. And when I had a few more good days, I bumped it up another week.

And then, life happened. I didn’t write one day because I was sick and the next because I reached a breaking point with my personal life and needed a mental health day. Today, I woke up and felt like my deadline was quickly becoming impossible. Not because I’ve been slacking, but because I’ve trained myself that doing well isn’t good enough.

This has been an overriding theme of my writing career, and I’d bet I’m not alone.

I miss the days leading up to publishing my first novel. I was nervous, but I was so damn proud of myself. I had accomplished something I’d dreamed of my entire life. Armed with the tidbit I’d read that the majority of published authors will never sell 100 copies, I had very few expectations. I knew those who went from unpublished to list-makers were the exception, not the rule.

With my stomach flipping, I hit publish that first time and waited. And watched. And when I hit ten copies sold, I cheered. I hit fifty and realized I was half way to being in the minority. No, I still wouldn’t be on a best-sellers list, but I was going to do it! I was going to sell 100 copies! And I did, quickly.

Fast forward to book two… I did fairly well with that first book (and was later offered a publishing deal for that book). I hit publish with confidence. And higher expectations. Selling even five hundred copies wasn’t enough, because I knew I was capable of more. Luckily, that book did just as well.

Write, publish, repeat.

With every project, my expectations grew. It was no longer enough to meet the sales of the previous books, I had to soar higher. I became obsessed with the copies sold, ranks, and everything that doesn’t mean a damn thing in life.

I’m ashamed to admit that this was also when my personal life took a nosedive. Those numbers ruled my life. I defined my worth by my copies sold, Amazon rank, number of followers on social media, and monthly deposits to my bank account. If those slipped, I was a failure. And I was right. I was a failure. I failed to be a wife to my husband or a mother to our children. I tried to justify my actions because this was how I helped support our family.

We spend our entire lives being told to raise the bar higher, but when is it time to let that bar sit there for a while? How do we retrain our minds to believe that we can be happy with where we’re at, especially when the alternative is setting goals which keep us from finding the peace we claim to want? I don’t have the answer, but you can guarantee I’m going to keep working to find the balance between personal happiness and professional accomplishment.

A little over a week ago, I sat at the edge of my couch, laptop perched between my knees and wrote a blog post as I watched the sun rise through the sliding glass doors of our living room. I’d found my mojo and life was good. But somewhere between that Monday and this past Monday, life happened. It got sticky and not quite so fun. And I didn’t write.

The me of the past would’ve given up with everything that was thrown my way. I won’t go into details, because looking back won’t do anyone any good, but let’s just say one of our dreams threatened to become a nightmare. And in the past, it would’ve been the type of nightmare that woke me up with cold sweats.

It’s now early on Thursday morning and the dust has settled. We still have some things to figure out, but I did realize one thing: this is the time I need to be motivated. It’s the only thing I can do to help my family get through this.

Every day isn’t easy. Every day isn’t good. But the day is easier when you’re not dragged down by everything that’s wrong in your world. Take the time to find something good about today, even if the silver lining in your cloud is that you’ve been given one more day to draw breath.

It’s the beginning of May. That means we’re close to halfway through 2016 already. If you’re like me, you might be wondering where the time has gone and why you aren’t closer to achieving the goals you set months ago. In the past, I’d get to this point and throw my hands in the air, telling myself that I’d screwed up once again and I’d try to do better in 2017.

But why? Why should I waste eight months of babysteps forward because of four months wasted? And were they wasted? Or were those months I needed in some way to set myself up to succeed? I’m honestly not sure, but without really setting out to do so, I spent some time this past weekend thinking about where I went wrong and how I can turn that around.

There is no right time

Yes, I know that’s a direct contradiction of this post’s title, but hear me out. With so many things in our lives, we say it’s not the right time. We want to start a family, but not until… We have dreams, but we can’t dare to make them reality until… We want to change our lives, but that change won’t happen until…

Until is a dreadful word. Why? Because until tells the universe that we aren’t ready for them. And it’ll put up roadblocks, “helping” us justify all the reasons we can’t do what we want to do.

Instead of thinking about all the reasons you can’t do something, find one reason you can do what you want to do. Maybe you can’t sit down with your morning cup of coffee and churn out the next great novel by the end of the month, but you can turn off the television and write for an hour every night. Maybe you’re out of shape and won’t be running a marathon within the year. But could you reach for a glass of water or step outside for a walk?

Life isn’t going to slow down for you. You need to tell life that now is the only time for you to get started on whatever it is.

Walk Before You Run

This is a big one for me. When I start anything, I jump in with both feet. Into the deep end. Without making sure I can swim. Sometimes, it works out well, but most of the time, my energy fades fast and I stamp one more failure into my memory as a way to remember what happens when I dare to dream.

Set realistic goals. Personally, I know I want to eventually be able to run a marathon. I’m not sure if it’ll happen, but I do know it’ll never happen if I stay on this couch all day. It also won’t happen today if I put on my running shoes and step out the door. I have to work myself up to it. So, today I will put the leash on the pup,

Personally, I know I want to eventually be able to run a marathon. I’m not sure if it’ll happen, but I do know it’ll never happen if I stay on this couch all day. It also won’t happen today if I put on my running shoes and step out the door. I have to work myself up to it. So, today I will put the leash on the pup, stuff earbuds into my ears, and restart C25K. Tomorrow, I’ll do it again. Eventually, I’ll make the first goal, which is a 5K race.

Blogging is another place where I know what I want to do, but I’ve gone about it all wrong. I love blogging. When I stopped doing it, I missed it. But that doesn’t mean I can jump back into blogging fulltime. Hell, if you look at the posts from this year, you’ll see how many times I’ve tried to jump into the deep end with this goal. So, for now, my goal is to sit down one morning a week and write something. That’s it. One blog post on Monday morning to kick off the new week. Once that’s a habit, I’ll go on to doing two posts. Over time, I’ll build my stamina and be consistent.

Stay Positive

This is a hard one. When I worked in customer service, we were constantly reminded that people are more likely to talk about a negative experience than a positive one. I can’t remember the exact stat, but I think it was something like three times more likely.

I’ve found the same to be true in personal interactions. How many times do we sit around and bitch about everything that’s going wrong? Yes, it makes us feel better at the time, but does it really help? I used to think it was BS that the energy you put out to the world is what you get back. Then, I met my own personal Pollyanna. She’s there to listen to me when I need to vent, but never allows me to dwell on the negative. She’s such a positive person, I once threw a stack of notebooks at her for being a perky morning person.

We got past that minor assault, and eventually, I realized she was onto something. I’m not great at being positive all the time, but my life is so much better when I am! This shit works! Seriously, find that person you can celebrate your joys with, even if it’s something as minor as being able to have a cup of coffee in peace or waking up to see the sun shining. If you don’t have that person, leave a comment below and we’ll all celebrate together!

The point of all of this morning’s rambling is that right now really is the right time to do whatever you’ve been thinking about doing. Whether you’re reading it on Monday morning or a Thursday six months from now, it’s the time. What is one thing you can do today so you’re closer to being where you want to be?

It seems that since about six months after I got into self-publishing, people have been complaining about Amazon. They make everything look shiny for authors to entice them, then change terms for the sake of building a more sustainable model for themselves. They want to make sure the provide a good customer experience, and we’re not the customers. As time has gone on, things seem to be getting more and more dire, but nothing is changing.

Why won’t Amazon listen to us?

There are petitions out there with tens of thousands of signatures, demanding that Jeff Bezos and Amazon stop screwing authors. People scream on Facebook and other social media networks every day about how messed up Amazon is. Why won’t the powers that be take note of our issues and change?

Because we’re not speaking their language. Let me put this simply: The only language Amazon speaks is money. They’re a business and they’re damn good at what they do. They’re not here to make friends or help us succeed. They’re where they are because they will always look out for their own bottom line.

But if they screw authors, they’re screwing themselves…

This is a frequently heard statement, but it’s inaccurate. Firstly, books are a gateway for them. They aren’t in the business of selling books. They’re in the business of selling all of their own products and taking a cut of everything people buy once they click on a book. They don’t give a damn about a $2.99 book sale that’s going to net them less than a dollar. Their sole hope is that while you’re there, you’re going to see something shiny, new, and much more expensive that you simply can’t live without.

Secondly, most authors don’t make enough to make an impact. They don’t need the income from Sloan Johnson when they’re still getting a cut from Stephen King or Nora Roberts. If I pulled all of my books today, they won’t even notice. Even if there was a mass exodus of indie authors, their bottom line will stay well in the black. Face it. We. Don’t. Matter.

So, we’re just screwed then?

That’s certainly one way to look at it. Up until now, the answer has been to scream about how evil Amazon is to authors and bloggers on social media, then get even more worked up when we don’t get results. So what do we do? We bitch some more and then wonder why they’re still not listening to us.

They’re not listening because we don’t make them listen. We still publish our books on Amazon. We still direct our readers to buy from Amazon because we know that’s where we get the majority of our sales. We enroll our books in KU because it seems to be the only way to make money on Amazon (guess what, they did that on purpose because they want to make money and they’re offering a “service” to readers to keep the money coming to them while choking out the competition).

The only way Amazon will even possibly begin to take note is if we stop allowing them to bully us. Being a mother, the subject of bullying is common in our house. My daughter has “friends” who are mean and hurtful. When she’s upset, do you know what I tell her? I tell her to stop hanging out with them. If she continues hanging out with them, she’s allowing them to continue treating her that way.

We have sales outlets who want our books. We have sites who want to help us succeed. But in order to do that, we have to place our books there. We have to encourage our readers to buy through them, even if they have to click an extra button to send the books to their Kindles.

If we want to stop Amazon from controlling our success in this industry, we have to be the ones to step up and force that change. We have to ask our readers to join us in this fight, to demand that Amazon listen, by taking their sales elsewhere. We have to speak their language.

When I started writing for pay, it was because I wanted to have more time with my family. I’m not talking about writing books, but writing in general. At the time, I worked as a freelance copywriter. I’d connected with several websites and wrote whatever they needed. For a while, I could dig up instruction manuals for just about anything and turn them into how-to articles in my sleep.

The problem was I wasn’t fulfilled. There was no joy in that work, other than knowing I was able to make enough money to help make ends meet.

I took part in NaNoWriMo for the first time when my daughter was a year old. And I failed. Well, my hard drive failed and I completely lost the will to continue. I tried again a few years later, when I was working full time, going to school full time, and had just found out I was pregnant with our son. I didn’t finish that year, either. But I refused to give up.

Writing fiction brought me back from a dark place. As much as I love my family, 2005 brought about too many changes too quickly. I felt as though I was losing myself. Within a matter of months, I became a wife and a mother, and those were the labels I wore in public. But when I sat behind the computer screen, I was my own person. I was doing what I wanted to do and I truly feel like that made me a better wife and mother. For a while.

In 2012, I published my first novel. That was a wakeup call for me, because even though I’ve never hit the New York Times or USA Today best-sellers lists, I was making more money than I had been doing that soul-draining copywriting. It became my drug of choice. I got caught up in the quest to do more, faster. The sales that made me happy on one book seemed inadequate on the next. So I spent more time at the computer, writing, revising, publishing, and oh, my God, the marketing. The never-ending marketing, hours spent trying to be seen in an ever growing library of published books.

By late 2013, I’d almost lost my family. I’ll never forget the day I stood in my kitchen and had a very calm discussion with my husband about how I felt like we weren’t going to make it and should figure out how to make our split easiest on our children. While writing wasn’t the sole reason for our problems, it played a big part. I felt like he wasn’t supporting me and he felt that I was ignoring them in favor of the world inside my screen.

I’d like to say I changed right then and there, but that’d be a lie. I did, however, start making some changes, and so did he. We came back from it. Early this year, I finally had this moment where I threw up my hands and decided that I’d had enough.

I started writing as a way to support my family, but over time, I’d allowed writing to become the primary function of my life and they were taking a back seat. They paid the price every time I didn’t hit some totally arbitrary number. I didn’t spend enough time with my kids, because there was always “one more thing” I needed to do.

That’s why I vowed to become more efficient with my writing and my life. If I had a “normal” job, I would go to work, come home, and be a wife and mother. I don’t do that, but I should treat this like my job, because it’s not my life. I think it’s easy for a lot of work-from-home parents to fail at balancing work and home life, but it’s important that we remember why we chose this life in the first place.

This is probably about the worst word for me to write about. I don’t know if other writers feel the same way, but I’m incredibly inefficient most days. The artist in me shuns rigidity. I want the world to be fluid and pretty all the time.

Unfortunately, the world outside of my computer doesn’t appreciate my desire to go with the flow. Like clockwork, the kids are going to get off the bus at the same time every day, and within an hour after that, they’re going to demand that I feed them. Again. As if I didn’t just feed them that morning.

Then there’s homework, quality time, laundry (because yes, they insist on clean clothes as well), bedtime and the accompanying bedtime squabbles.

My phone has become a lifeline in my quest to be more efficient. And if you’ve seen the notification bubbles, don’t laugh at that claim. I may suck at clearing voicemails and emails, but it helps in other ways. Here are a few of the apps I use on a daily basis to help me function:

Speak To Snooze: Okay, so it may not be the best alarm clock for someone like me, because it allows me to yell at the incessant screeching trying to pull me out of dreamland. But I’m in love with it because I can download different voices to give me shit right back. Currently, Honey Badger and I are in a deep, early morning love affair.

Streaks: I love knowing how many days in a row I do something. The longer I can keep a streak going, the crappier I feel if I don’t do something. Right now, I only have four of the six allowed tasks in there, and they’re so basic most adults would wonder why I need the reminders. Well, it’s because I’m trying to form some habits to help my brain function before coffee. And now I’m wondering why “make coffee” isn’t on there. Anyway, every day, I shower (this is a more important reminder for writers than you’d think it should be), journal, eat breakfast (as opposed to drink coffee, read emails, screw around on social media, and wonder why you’re so hungry by three in the afternoon), and read (a craft book, not a leisurely read) for ten minutes. As I complete these tasks, I fill in the bubbles to keep my streaks going.

Swipes: This is the real brain center of my day. There are some tasks that go off at the same time every day, but others are reminders for the things I need to do (puppy to the vet, kids to the doctor, etc). Again, I’m learning that being efficient is about routine (shudder), so as soon as the tasks pop up, I get them done and move on. What I love about this particular to-do list app is that I don’t wake up to twenty-one tasks every day. I’m never overwhelmed by what I need to do.

Pomodoro: I’m not sure there’s a single writer out there who hasn’t at least heard about the Pomodoro Technique. If you’re like I was for a long time (meaning you think it’s ridiculous and couldn’t possibly work), you need to give it a good try. The basic concept is that you’re giving yourself permission to do something for a set amount of time rather than until the task is done. It’s funny, but when you know you’re only doing something for twenty-five minutes (or however long you choose), you will work harder than if it’s open ended.

5KWPH: This may seem a bit redundant with having Pomodoro, but I love this app! It allows me to not only time my writing sprints, but also keep track of how many words I’ve written. It becomes a competition with myself to keep improving my times while I’m writing first drafts. Okay, and the end of sprint timer celebrates with me and there are awards to be won, which is always fun!